Decomposing

I usually like to keep to myself as far as my neighbors are concerned, but this morning Christian and I decided to attend the gardening club meeting. We made the decision to go before I realized the topic was "backyard compost"! The meeting was hosted by Karen Avery, certified Master Gardener, who lives on the street behind me. Approximately 25 people attended, mostly older folk, but there was a handful of very cool ladies, including Karen, who are really into the whole organic gardening thing, which was extremely exciting.

I learned a thing or two about composting, so the first thing we did when we got home was turn the pile I've had brewing since about March. Turning it was as complicated and labor intensive as Karen had promised it would be: first we emptied half of it out onto a tarp, then we picked the cage up and moved it over so it we could start afresh. We then had two piles, one on the tarp and one in the original position minus the cage. After forking through it some, I realized the reason it wasn't really decomposing was probably because there were too many leaves and not enough grass. So I then mowed the front yard, bringing the clippings back bag by bag and layering them with the freshly turned compost.















After mowing the front yard and shoveling about 1/3 of the original compost back into the cage, I was exhausted. So we took a lunch break and watched a cool DVD called Mad Hot Ballroom about some New York City public schools who offer ballroom dance lessons to their fifth-grade kids who then go on to compete in a regional competition. A great inspirational documentary for anyone with kids, or anyone who spends all day teaching kids (!).

When the movie was over we went back out and Christian mowed the back yard for me while I mixed the clippings in. When the original pile was back in the cage we called it quits and left the bigger pile for tomorrow.

I was beginning to think that the agony I've been experiencing in my neck the last couple of weeks was the old stress-neck back again. But after trimming a few overhanging branches with the long-extending-handle-trimmer-thing, I'm beginning to wonder if it's not just that all this manual labor catching up with me; I can hardly turn my head.

The compost pile may have to wait...